BlackBerry Worldhttp://www.maclife.com/taxonomy/term/11324/all
enOvernight Recap: Samsung Goes for Gold, iPhone 3GS Returns, Reeder Updatehttp://www.maclife.com/article/news/overnight_recap_samsung_goes_gold_iphone_3gs_returns_reeder_update
<!--paging_filter--><p><img src="/files/u220903/samsung_galaxy_golden_620px.png" alt="Samsung Galaxy Golden" width="620" height="300" /></p><p>The bad news just keeps piling up for The Company Formerly Known as Research in Motion. Today's recap includes a look at how nearly a third of the BlackBerry maker's app store is clogged up with titles from a single developer -- and as you can imagine, it's more about quantity and quality. Read on to find out more...</p><h3>Samsung Beats Apple to Gold Punch with Dual-Screen Flip Phone</h3><p>Sorry, Apple, that gold iPhone you haven't even officially announced yet is already old news: <a href="http://9to5google.com/2013/08/21/samsung-announces-galaxy-golden-a-700-dual-screen-flip-phone-for-korea/" target="_blank">According to 9to5Google</a>, Samsung is now the Goldfinger of mobile phones thanks to the introduction of its new <a href="http://samsungtomorrow.com/삼성전자-국내-최초-프리미엄-폴더-스마트폰-갤럭시" target="_blank">Galaxy Golden</a>. Featuring dual flip screens running Android 4.2 and priced at 790,000 won (approximately $700), the handset appears to be targeted more to the international market where this kind of tacky product is apparently more popular. Ironically, the report notes that the Samsung Galaxy Golden "appears to be closer to bronze in color than gold," so Apple still has a chance to reclaim the Goldfinger title, should they want to.</p><h3>Rumor: AT&amp;T Offers iPhone 3GS Refurbs to GoPhone Customers?</h3><p><a href="http://www.macrumors.com/2013/08/21/att-to-quietly-offer-refurbished-iphone-3gs-models-to-gophone-customers/" target="_blank">MacRumors reported Wednesday</a> that AT&amp;T retail stores may soon see a ghost from the past in their stockroom. According to a tipster, refurbished iPhone 3GS handsets could soon be offered to prepaid GoPhone customers, despite Apple having discontinued that model nearly a year ago when the iPhone 5 made its debut. Apparently AT&amp;T won't publicly advertise the handsets, instead offering them to "price-sensitive customers" in larger store locations. Sounds like all of those old trade-ins may finally find a home in the near future...</p><h3>Universal Reeder for iOS Coming This Month, Mac Public Beta This Fall</h3><p>Those curious to know when popular RSS application Reeder will return to the iPad and Mac now that Google Reader is defunct should look no further than <a href="https://twitter.com/reederapp/status/370211042166861824" target="_blank">the app's official Twitter account</a>. On Wednesday, developer Silvio Rizzi confirmed "Reeder for iOS is still on track for submission this month. Universal (iPhone and iPad). 4.99$. Reeder for Mac public beta this autumn." Although good news for die-hard Reeder fans, the tweet caused some degree of confusion with existing users, since the current iPhone app already syncs with Google Reader replacements such as Feedly, and it isn't quite clear if the new universal app will be an update or an entirely new app altogether — but we won't have long to find out.</p><h3>One Developer Accounts for Nearly One-Third of All BlackBerry Apps</h3><p><a href="http://bgr.com/2013/08/21/blackberry-world-app-spam/" target="_blank">BGR reported Wednesday</a> on a rather disturbing statistic for flailing BlackBerry: Apparently, more than 48,000 of the roughly 150,000 apps in the company's BlackBerry World store are the work of a single developer. The culprit is developer S4BB Limited, whose dubious work includes "the Mega Fart flatulence simulator, a Hong Kong Taxi Call app, a self-described 'fake out-of-battery display' app and a plethora of city guides," among many others. Although we admire&nbsp;S4BB's&nbsp;tenacity (but not really), this can only be viewed as another black eye for BlackBerry, which clearly turned a blind eye to this sort of thing in an effort to bulk up its catalog.</p><h3>Topps Launches KICK Digital Trading Cards for Barclays Premier League</h3><p>Why should American sports have all the fun? If you happen to enjoy soccer and follow the exploits of the Barclays Premier League, the latest app from The Topps Company will be right up your alley. KICK is a free, exclusive iPhone app for the 2013-2014 season that allows users to collect, trade and play their favorite footballers (not to be confused with players of American football, of course). The app also comes in quite handy for fans who are regionally challenged and can't actually watch the games, since KICK will keep users updated as the season progresses, with real-time valuations, trades and more. <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/kick-exclusive-barclays-premier/id679753195?mt=8" target="_blank">KICK: The Exclusive Barclays Premier League Digital Football Trading Card Game</a> is now available as a free download from the App Store.<br /><br /><em>Follow this article’s author, <a href="http://twitter.com/JRBTempe" target="_blank">J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter</a></em></p>http://www.maclife.com/article/news/overnight_recap_samsung_goes_gold_iphone_3gs_returns_reeder_update#commentsNewsApp StoreAT&TBlackBerry Worldfree appsGoldGoPhoneiphone 3gsovernight recapReederSamsungsoccerToppsiPadiPhoneiPodMacThu, 22 Aug 2013 12:28:42 +0000J.R. Bookwalter17841 at http://www.maclife.comTuesday Recap: Samsung Tops Smartphones, Jolicloud App, BlackBerry 10http://www.maclife.com/article/news/tuesday_recap_samsung_tops_smartphones_jolicloud_app_blackberry_10
<!--paging_filter--><p><img src="/files/u220903/blackberry_10_dev_alpha_200px.png" alt="BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha" width="200" height="150" class="graphic-right" />BlackBerry World kicked off in Florida today, where RIM finally gave us a peek behind the veil of its forthcoming BlackBerry 10 mobile operating system. Almost immediately, the Canadian handset maker was criticized for not innovating enough, with BB10 described as shades of the late, great webOS and having more in common with iOS and Android than Microsoft’s Windows Phone, which may be the only hope mobile users have for a refreshing new OS. Ready for the rest of the day’s news? Then read on to find out what’s making headlines for Tuesday, May 1, 2012.</p><h3>IDC: Samsung Tops Mobile Phone Shipments for Q1 2012</h3><p>Nokia, you’ve been dethroned: <a href="http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23455612" target="_blank">New data from IDC reveals that Samsung is now the top dog</a> where total mobile phone and smartphone shipments are concerned, with 42.2 million smartphones shipped in the first quarter of the year for a 29.1 percent share of the market. That’s a huge improvement from the same quarter a year ago when the Korean electronics giant shipped only 11.5 million devices, a whopping 267 percent year-over-year change. The bad news continues for Nokia, because Apple is resting nicely in second place with 35.1 smartphones shipped, an 88.7 percent increase over the same period last year with 18.6 million. So where does that leave Nokia? Solidly in third place, with a mere 11.9 million smartphones shipped, a 50.8 percent drop from the 24.2 million it shipped in the same quarter a year ago. Painful, but at least they’re holding their own against fourth-placed Research in Motion and fifth-placed HTC.</p><h3>Jolicloud Social Index Service Arrives on App Store</h3><p>Social networking apps seem to be a dime a dozen, but few of them actually make an effort to collect all of your various photos, videos, music, documents and links under one roof. <a href="http://www.jolicloud.com/" target="_blank">Jolicloud</a> wants to be the answer to this dilemma, and <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jolicloud/id485640524?mt=8" target="_blank">this week the company has rolled out their official iPhone app</a> to aid in this task. The service indexes everything you have created, liked or received from popular online services such as Facebook, Twitter, Picasa, Flicker, Instagram and more, then automatically builds a personal and searchable library of this content. “Explore and search your personal cloud like never before,” the company explains. “Your Jolicloud is entirely searchable so you can find a document you shared on your Facebook wall a year ago or a Twitter link you absolutely need for a presentation.” Best of all, the service and the app are free, so check it out!</p><h3>RIM Reveals BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha with Test Device</h3><p>Research in Motion kicked off BlackBerry World 2012 earlier today, where CEO Thorsten Heins took the stage to show off a few features of the long-awaited BlackBerry 10. The general consensus seems to be that the new QNX-based platform is too little, too late and fails to offer a truly unique difference from iOS or Android. <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2012/5/1/2991104/blackberry-10-new-user-interface-apps-developer-tools" target="_blank">The Verge has compiled a plethora of notes on the gathering</a>, where developers received temporary hardware to begin working on their apps for the eventual release later this year. But will developers bite? RIM is rumored to be laying some cash on the table in an effort to woo developers into the fold, which includes a guarantee that they’ll make at least $10,000 in the first year on “certified” BlackBerry 10 apps -- if that fails to happen, the company will cut the developer a check for the difference. With Microsoft finally stepping up their Windows Phone game as a viable third platform, is there any left for RIM? Remains to be seen...</p><h3>Apple Releases Minor Updates to Cards, iLife for iOS Apps</h3><p>While The Financial Times may be heading out of the App Store, Apple is busy today updating its iLife apps. <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/iphoto/id497786065?mt=8" target="_blank">iPhoto</a>, <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/imovie/id377298193?mt=8" target="_blank">iMovie</a> and <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/garageband/id408709785?mt=8" target="_blank">GarageBand</a> all received minor updates today, ranging from adding a Copy Link button to iPhoto’s iCloud journal publishing feature to accessing Help while editing an iMovie project on the iPad and a trio of bug fixes for GarageBand. Also on the update list is <a href="http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cards/id464957209?mt=8" target="_blank">Cards</a>, which adds beautiful letterpress cards for Mother’s Day, new Get Well card designs, additional cards for birthdays, thank you and other events and improved accuracy for envelope address verification. The iLife updates are pretty beefy, so you might want to download while your internet connection is idle. You know where to find ‘em, right?</p><h3>Financial Times Finally Abandoning iOS for HTML5</h3><p><a href="http://paidcontent.org/2012/05/01/web-journey-complete-ft-switching-off-ios-app/" target="_blank">PaidContent is reporting</a> that <em>The Financial Times</em> is leaving the iOS platform, effectively killing off its apps in favor of an HTML5 portal where they have more control over subscriptions. The move shouldn’t come as a surprise, since the publisher pulled the iOS app from the App Store last year, but it continued to be usable for existing subscribers. “Now, however, the FT will render the iOS app unusable by its remaining users over the next month, as it completes its HTML5 migration,” the report reveals. “It is taking the step because only a relative handful of users remain and because it can no longer continue to maintain features inside the app.” Could Apple soon see more such defections from its popular App Store?<br /><br /><em>Follow this article’s author, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/JRBTempe" target="_blank">J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter</a><br /><br />(Image courtesy of CrackBerry.com)</em></p><p>&nbsp;</p>http://www.maclife.com/article/news/tuesday_recap_samsung_tops_smartphones_jolicloud_app_blackberry_10#commentsNewsApp StoreBlackBerry 10BlackBerry Worlddaily recapGaragebandIDCiMovieiPhotoJolicloudnokiaSamsungiPadiPhoneTue, 01 May 2012 22:16:43 +0000J.R. Bookwalter13969 at http://www.maclife.comReport: This Year’s BlackBerry World Looking Pretty Ho-Humhttp://www.maclife.com/article/news/report_year%E2%80%99s_blackberry_world_looking_pretty_hohum
<!--paging_filter--><p><img src="/files/u220903/blackberry_world_event_200px.png" alt="BlackBerry World stage" width="200" height="150" class="graphic-right" />Five months into his reign, Research in Motion CEO Thorsten Heins will be facing the toughest crowd of them all in Orlando next week: Disgruntled BlackBerry developers who are quickly losing faith in their platform.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/30/us-rim-idUSBRE83T0HV20120430" target="_blank">Reuters is reporting</a> that Research in Motion will hold their annual BlackBerry World conference in Orland, Florida next week, but given the rough year the company has had, it’s likely to be a considerably more subdued affair.<br /><br />While Apple’s similar WWDC event held in San Francisco June 11-15 sold out in just two hours and Google I/O is likely to enjoy a similar fate, BlackBerry World is expected to focus more on stopping the company’s bleeding more than about new BlackBerry 10 products, which aren’t expected until October at the earliest.<br /><br />RIM has already reduced the size of the event by cancelling a traditional presentation for financial analysts in the wake of a string of bleak news from the company. That event will now be held closer to when the new BlackBerry 10 products go on sale later in the year.<br /><br />“In the year since RIM's last Orlando conference, the company has issued a string of disappointing financial results, suffered an embarrassing global network outage and watched its share price tumble by 75 percent,” the report notes. “Lazaridis and Balsillie quit under pressure in late January, replaced by Heins, a former Siemens AG executive who ran RIM's hardware business for several years.”<br /><br />"Expectations are so low I don't think it's possible to disappoint investors," said National Bank Financial analyst Kris Thompson. "The conference isn't for investors anyway; it's for customers, developers and partners."<br /><br />Perhaps the biggest news from BlackBerry World will arrive in the form of a prototype BlackBerry 10 device, which RIM is expected to hand out to developers for testing of their apps. While the company is stressing this hardware “bears no relation to the finished product,” you can bet that tech blogs will get their hands on one in search of clues to as to where the once-iconic product might be heading.<br /><br /><em>Follow this article’s author, <a href="http://www.twitter.com/JRBTempe" target="_blank">J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter</a><br /><br />(Image courtesy of BGR)</em></p><p>&nbsp;</p>http://www.maclife.com/article/news/report_year%E2%80%99s_blackberry_world_looking_pretty_hohum#commentsNewsanalystsblackberryBlackBerry WorldconferencesDevelopersinvestorspresentationResearch in MotionWWDCiPadiPhoneMon, 30 Apr 2012 13:28:36 +0000J.R. Bookwalter13950 at http://www.maclife.com